March 12, 2014

For a long time, I've been pointing out that Malcolm Gladwell makes far more money lecturing at corporate events than does Charles Murray, even though Murray is enormously informed and insightful, while Gladwell is a wee bit obtuse.

For those starting out in their careers—and those who wish to advance more quickly—this is a delightfully fussy guide to the hidden rules of the road in the workplace and in life.

As bestselling author and social historian Charles Murray explains, at senior levels of an organization there are curmudgeons everywhere, judging your every move. Yet it is their good opinion you need to win if you hope to get ahead.

• What to do if you have a bad boss
• Coming to grips with the difference between being nice and being good
• How to write when you don’t know what to say
• Being judgmental (it’s good, and you don’t have a choice anyway)
And on the great topics of life, the curmudgeon urges us to leave home no matter what, get real jobs (not internships), put ourselves in scary situations, and watch Groundhog Day repeatedly (he’ll explain).

Witty, wise, and pulling no punches, The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead is an indispensable sourcebook for living an adult life.

Has the zeitgeist shifted enough for Murray to succeed on Gladwell's turf? Murray's last book Coming Apart was treated with respect by most reviewers, while his extraordinary 2003 book "Human Accomplishment" was largely ignored as punishment for The Bell Curve in 1994, so the mental atmosphere at the top may have improved enough.

It will be interesting to see if the intellectual climate has improved (e.g., Gladwell is going out of fashion -- even President Obama bought David Epstein's book attacking Gladwellism: The Sports Gene) for Murray to cash in on the Airport Book market.

On the other hand, Gladwell has certainly made more money relative to his talents than Murray has, so if Charles is so smart, why isn't he rich?

Obviously, I'm both interested and not disinterested: the success or failure of Murray's The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead is relevant to the reception publishers will give to my Airport Book proposal tentatively entitled The Devil Incarnate's Guide to Being Poor and Hated. (Chapter One is: "Pick on Poor Stanley Fischer ... a Lot.")

In all honesty, the culture is changing so dramatically right now that I don't know whether someone like Charles Murray has his ear sufficiently close to the ground in order to have anything useful to say here.

Seriously - how do you counsel a USA Army physician who just came home from Afghanistan only to discover that his daughter has been making porn videos to pay her college tuition?

Weeelll...thing is, Murray hasn't been very successful, due to an ethical but troublesome tendency to speak his mind. So while his tendency to tell the truth is good for us, it doesn't seem good for him, and hence, should he be writing a success book? Success usually means behaving unethically to some extent.

You must not have paid much attention to the book, as Murray makes it quite clear that "white folks" have not "achieved 99% of great stuff." Only certain groups of White people have demonstrated high rates of accomplishment, while other groups of White people have just been along for the ride.

"In all honesty, the culture is changing so dramatically right now that I don't know whether someone like Charles Murray has his ear sufficiently close to the ground in order to have anything useful to say here."

I'm already impressed by the correct placement of apostrophes in the title.

When Groundhog Day came out, a professional (i.e., employed) screenwriter told me it was the best script he'd seen in many years. I want to know how Murray ties it in.

It's appropriate here for another reason: it co-starred a model and "Method" actress, Andie MacDowell, and thus hijacked the career of a younger but more accomplished actress with the same face but several times the skill, Trini Alvarado. Kind of a Gladwell-and-Murray situation.

Please write the airport book, Mr. Sailer. My heart... skipped a beat. Until I realized you were not serious yet.

How about open a thread for readers to comment about what you should include in the airport book? Let's start with an anthology of your best things from here. California nostalgia classics... golf course architecture... invite the world. Cut the Jew stuff, though. Not that I disagree, but at least make it conspiracy-neutral. Place the blame more on us goyim for letting this happen.

What is exactly wrong with "Sharing" and " reaching out." I have a tendency to do both I suspect. I'm not disputing Murray at all- He's far more successful than me. Being aspy- ish I need clarification though. Guess ill have to get this book.

Also, I don't understand the difference between being " nice" and "good. "

".....is relevant to the reception publishers will give to my Airport Book proposal tentatively entitled The Devil Incarnate's Guide to Being Poor and Hated. (Chapter One is: "Pick on Poor Stanley Fischer ... a Lot.")"

Steve Sailer? Isn't he one of those Boys-from-Brazil Hitler clones? Obviously, his is a name that not be named.

His books tend to be meandering garbage written by an old man with only a trivial understanding about how things work in the modern world.

3/12/14, 10:52 PM

I dunno. Much as "Coming Apart" missed the goddamn point, "The Bell Curve" and "Real Education" made some great arguments. Yes, he's pretty bad on things like immigration, but topics like IQ (not to mention race and race/IQ) are so incendiary that I think he did all he could with his material. If nothing else, his perfectly reasonable (and well written) work on IQ was what made me (a left-libertarian-in-one-country type) into a race realist immigration restrictionist.

He's so good on things like IQ that people seem almost offended that he's less than brilliant on other topics. Personally, I cut him some slack. I'm also fascinated to see what he thinks about the workplace, all the more because he's not a member of the corporatist soi-disant elites. All the advice from really successful people in business seems to boild down to "be like me" and/or "do what will, completely coincidentally, benefit me and my business." A level of disinterest is needed here.

"He's so good on things like IQ that people seem almost offended that he's less than brilliant on other topics."

Because it's all related. You can't be "brilliant" in one area but completely foul another. You can't talk about job losses and dysfunction without mentioning immigration and outsourcing. Murray's books are misdirection of the highest caliber.

Reg Caesar:"It's appropriate here for another reason: it co-starred a model and "Method" actress, Andie MacDowell, and thus hijacked the career of a younger but more accomplished actress with the same face but several times the skill, Trini Alvarado. Kind of a Gladwell-and-Murray situation."

I wonder if her status as a White Hispanic hurts her? I've heard stories from friends in the business that being White and having a Spanish surname creates cognitive dissonance with casting directors in Hollywood.They see the Spanish name and expect a Mestizo, etc. For example, it's been suggested that Michelle Forbes Guajardo goes by Michelle Forbes because her Spanish last name was out of sync with her White appearance. Early in her career she would get calls for maids, etc, but the casting directors would balk at using a White actress in the part. Using her elegant, WASPy middle name as her last name avoids such confusion.No one is going to call up someone named Forbes for a maid part in Hollywood, unless the Forbes in question is Black.

Obviously, I'm both interested and not disinterested: the success or failure of Murray's The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead is relevant to the reception publishers will give to my Airport Book proposal tentatively entitled The Devil Incarnate's Guide to Being Poor and Hated. (Chapter One is: "Pick on Poor Stanley Fischer ... a Lot.")

Re: :It will be interesting to see if the intellectual climate has improved (e.g., Gladwell is going out of fashion -- even President Obama bought David Epstein's book attacking Gladwellism: The Sports Gene) for Murray to cash in on the Airport Book market."

Obama may have bought Epstein's book, but he'll still legislate according to Gladwell.

If she makes porn for tuition, then men watch porn for the acting. Ridiculous justification. She'd make more money as "call girl" then as whore on film and keep her privacy. Mmm, perhaps she's looking for the opposite of money or privacy. The world and this girl has whored themselves out for cheap recognition.

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